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TAFE teachers to push for pay parity

Farrah Tomazin

Victoria's teacher union is gearing up for another industrial stoush - this time by TAFE staff demanding pay parity with their state school counterparts.

Less than two weeks after the state government brokered a wage deal with primary and secondary school teachers, TAFE staff have told Fairfax Media they will also seek lucrative rises to give them pay equality.

''A teacher is a teacher, no matter which sector they teach in," said Australian Education Union branch secretary Gillian Robertson. "Whether they be in early childhood, at a TAFE or at a school, they should have parity in their professional terms and conditions."

TAFE teachers currently earn $50,856 at graduate level compared with $56,958 for school teachers. At the top of the classroom scale, they earn $81,488 compared with $84,056 for their school counterparts.

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This gap is likely to widen if the in-principle wage deal for school teachers - which the union claims will lead to pay rises of between 16 per cent and 20.5 per cent over three years - is ratified by members in coming weeks.

But TAFE bosses say they will struggle to find the money - and have flagged the prospect of further job losses or higher fees - because the government will no longer help to fund pay increases.

In the past, tertiary teachers were covered by a single agreement. However, the government announced last year that each TAFE institute would be able to negotiate individual wage deals. They would also be required to pay for them.

''Now that the government has withdrawn any underpinning funding for public sector wage outcomes, every cent that we pay out we have to raise," said Victorian TAFE Association chief executive David Williams.

''For every increase in dollars, it will either mean three things: a reduction in jobs, an increase in workload or an increase in student fees.''

Negotiations will begin later this year, and the institutions will be required to stick to the government's public sector wage policy of 2.5 per cent annual increases, with anything above that to be met by productivity offsets.

But the looming industrial battle over TAFE could prove politically sensitive for the Coalition, with anger over its decision to cut $290 million from the sector. In a bid to offset the damage, Premier Denis Napthine recently announced a $200 million boost for ''innovation and structural reform'' in vocational education.

But Ms Robertson said the earlier cuts had impacted on working conditions for teachers.

"The pressure is absolutely on for people to be doing more with less money," she said.

The push for pay parity comes after 18 months of industrial turmoil in schools, including three statewide strikes, rolling half-day strikes, a ban on unpaid overtime and a ban on comments in report cards.